BLUEMARQ GROUP Founder Luong Tri Thin on the Group’s aspirations in the new era of development

Why did you decide this was the time for Dat Xanh to move to a completely different model?

Dat Xanh has had nearly 23 years of very successful development, but having gone through many ups and downs in the market, I see very clearly that the old model will eventually hit its development ceiling. If we continue to follow the old model, we will be limited by our own success.

Many people think businesses only change when they encounter difficulties. I think the opposite. Every successful organization, if it wants to go further, will have times when it must bravely change. And that change must come before the market forces the business to act; it is too late to change when the pressure appears.

Dat Xanh has repeatedly been ahead of market trends; with BLUEMARQ GROUP, we will do the same.

A major motivation for this transformation is the change in the nation’s development strategy. Vietnam aims to become a developed country with high income by 2045. A new era for the nation is opening up, with the private business sector identified as an important driver of the national economy.

When the country needs it, large private enterprises must be leading forces, bold enough to step forward, dare to take on greater responsibilities, dare to innovate business models, and find new directions to create greater value for the economy, driving national development.

What do you see as the biggest limitation of the traditional real estate model?

The biggest limitation is that growth depends entirely on the cycle. When the market is favorable, everything moves very quickly. When the cycle reverses, pressure on cash flow, capital, and operations appears almost immediately. Businesses that rely solely on that model will find it very difficult to go the distance. You can’t build a billion-dollar corporation solely through real estate sales launches.

A deeper limitation lies in how the capital market and investment funds view the business. A traditional developer is valued by the number of products sold in each quarter. But an investment, asset management, and global real estate development group, the model BLUEMARQ GROUP is aiming for, will be valued more highly for its portfolio of operating assets, the quality of its cash flow, and its ability to weather many ups and downs in the market. These two valuation methods not only yield different numbers. They determine the position of the business, including what kind of capital it can access, from whom, and under what conditions.

Vietnamese real estate businesses have long been accustomed to selling assets but are not yet accustomed to operating them. BLUEMARQ GROUP is built to change that.

Globally, CapitaLand Investment, Brookfield, Blackstone, and ESR Group have been following this direction for many years. Vietnam will certainly move in that direction as well. If Vietnamese businesses are not proactive, the major assets of the economy will end up in the hands of foreign businesses. I do not want that to happen.

What is the core difference between the mindset of simply developing projects and the mindset of investing, managing assets, and developing real estate?

I often use a very simple example. Consider an office building in the city center. A simple developer will look at it and ask how much we can sell it for and how long it will take to recover the capital. But an investment, asset management, and real estate development organization will ask how much cash flow and operational value this building can generate over the next 10 or 20 years.

With BLUEMARQ GROUP, real estate development remains a core competency. But we do not stop there. We are changing the way we view assets, how we use capital, and our growth methods to enter larger playing fields, expanding cooperation with financial institutions and international investors.

More importantly, we want BLUEMARQ GROUP to represent a generation of Vietnamese private enterprises capable of long-term cooperation with them, not just developers looking for capital for individual projects.

What makes you believe this is the right time to undertake this comprehensive restructuring?

I believe that the next phase of the Vietnamese real estate market will be a completely different game, where businesses compete not only on the speed of project development but also on management capacity, the ability to control capital flow, the level of transparency, and organizational resilience.

More importantly, I see that this moment in Vietnam presents very different opportunities than before: a complete and strict legal framework for the market to develop more sustainably. International capital is also changing its approach to Vietnam, no longer just looking for individual projects to invest in but seeking domestic partners with the capacity to accompany them for the long term. Major initiatives such as establishing the International Financial Center in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang also present significant opportunities.

In particular, the government is launching the GoGlobal strategy, encouraging Vietnamese businesses to enter international markets and participate more deeply in the global value chain.

We have been thinking about reaching a new operating model for many years, not just recently. Now, the business is large enough, the opportunity has come, and the country needs it, so we must move forward decisively.

According to you, what is the biggest challenge in the restructuring from Dat Xanh to BLUEMARQ GROUP this time?

The biggest challenge is breaking the inertia of our own success. Any organization, after many years of success, will develop an operating method that becomes deeply ingrained in the system.

Dat Xanh is no exception. The processes, decision-making methods, and ways of measuring efficiency were all built to serve the project development and sales model. That model once helped Dat Xanh grow very quickly. And precisely because it was so effective, change will not be easy.

It will be very challenging, but I and the leadership team at BLUEMARQ GROUP are determined to pursue this restructuring strategy to the end. In a large organization, when leaders truly change, the operating system, decision-making methods, and ways of measuring efficiency will gradually be forced to change as well. Then a new inertia will form, and the entire organization will begin to transform accordingly.

What benefits will BLUEMARQ GROUP’s model after restructuring bring to shareholders, customers, and investors?

This model will create more sustainable benefits for shareholders, customers, and partners accompanying BLUEMARQ GROUP.

For shareholders, the value of the business will no longer depend entirely on each short-term sales cycle but will instead be built on the ability to operate, manage assets, and maintain organizational resilience over the long term.

For customers, we do not sell products; we sell experiences and real value. We are responsible for the quality of assets, the quality of service, and the long-term use value of projects for many years to come.

But in my opinion, the vision of a large enterprise cannot stop at profits or growth for itself alone. That is important, but not ambitious enough.

BLUEMARQ GROUP is built to go beyond the story of a real estate business. We want to contribute to forming a new generation of Vietnamese enterprises capable of creating and managing large assets for the economy, with the stature to become strategic partners of the world’s leading investment organizations.

We are building BLUEMARQ GROUP into a global investment, asset management, and real estate development group, capable of generating long-term, sustainable cash flow through a business model designed to endure across generations without depending on any individual. That is the real aspiration behind our decision to restructure Dat Xanh into BLUEMARQ GROUP.